Haslett looking like a genius again.

Rymanofthenorth said:

thats a solid point , I think Landry covered up a lot of what was going wrong early on, there is a reason when your safety leads the NFL in tackles lol.

I think pretty much anyone was gonna try switching Landry to SS after watching even one game last year so I dont really give Haslett much credit for resurecting landry, in all he traded 2 probowlers on the line to become marginal benchwarmers while bring back landry lol

the real thing thats been killing us is we arent getting turnovers now because people have film, they see where our weaknesses are and the know that because we are unsound they can attack without risk in certain areas. this will continue until we smarten up and actually start being sound. the problem is we are so lacking in whats needed to be good at this 3-4 that we forced to be unsound to get pressure.

I do also find it funny that at the start of the year Haslett said we would run a defence like the steelers and san diego and some cowboys stuff, but thus far we have run a LOT of two gap stuff and very little one gap blitz type stuff. it shows in our dline having .5 of a sack.

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aside from Rak...we don't have LBs with the speed to consistently blitz.....not like P-burgh anyway

Rymanofthenorth said:

Boone- thats the major reason im not sold on this new group, anyone who could think that we were only a few players away is not paying attention to actual film. just as anyone who thought we could switch to a 3-4 and get better isnt showing much football acumen.

I have maintained that what we need is a young guy who is building a legacy and willing to take risks to do it, the more I think about it, the more I worry that Shanny's ego is gonna result in more tread water seasons. lets be honest, all of here would take 4 wins then 6 wins and then 8 wins, if it was a progression towards a contending team but 4 wins then 6 wins then 8 wins then 9 wins then 8 wins is what we are seeing this team do constantly.

I am hopeful this will stop I just am finding it harder to believe it will.

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agree. can't lay all the blame for 18 years of malfeasance at Shanahan's feet. but it does not appear as though the options are there...or the strategy in place.....to build for long-term excellence.

it's the massive number of holes that sticks in my craw. how do you rectify these without just blowing it up and starting over?

See Fan, thats one of things I couldnt understand about this switch and why I wonder how much shanny knows outside of offence.

1- our linebacking core was so thin and shallow that we moved a stud DE prospect there simply because he had the measurables to play it, we wasted a season where he could have been developing into a probowl DE. it was ignored that the bulk of his big plays came when his hand was in the dirt and that the majority of his moves were DE moves not LB moves. and we did this in a season when we ran a 4-3 lol.

2- guys like Chris Wilson and Perry Riley and even Blades and henderson were given as viable alternatives who supposedly would step up in a 3-4 but who turned out to be the best LB? a friggin converted DT named alexander. none of those others did anything at all thus far.

3- we were told that although AC was an abject fail in the 34 in sf (which resulted in us getting him for a song btw) that OUR staff would use him correctly and he would blossom.

4- we were told that Fletch could play in a 3-4 and so could rocky, yet both of them have decent numbers yet have played very very poorly in regards to actually making difference plays.

now for the biggest indictment, this team had several huge holes, Oline, Receiver, Running back, QB, depth across the defence (except ironicaly at DE) and rather than focus on fixing those we added several gaping holes, now we have holes across the front 7 and still have needs in the secondary.

we need to blow it up, but that doesnt mean getting rid of everyone at once, you fix what you can you add players in your most gaping holes but heres the key YOU HAD BETTER BE A GOOD EVALUATOR BECAUSE YOU BETTER GET IT RIGHT. we could have had several options at center but Shanny liked rabach, we could have gotten some better Dts but they liked Kemo. we watched as several other free agent running backs have had great games and a couple great seasons, yet our free agents are now off the team and we are starting Torain and Keiland williams. nuff said

Ok.... i have one thing to say at this, and hopefully i do it without completely blowing up but here goes.


Why do people say you have to change the scheme around your player?? NO, YOU DONT! Actually, you SHOULDNT! Here's why.

If you change your scheme around 1 player then the whole defense changes for 11 guys. All 11 guys have to learn a new scheme, not only positionally but situationally. Here's what I mean. Positionally, Each guy needs to be in a specific place, situationally, each guy needs to understand what to do in specific situations. I know it sounds elementary but hear me out. EACH PLAYER IS DIFFERENT. If Albert Haynesworth, for example, has a tendency to creep to the right when a player goes in motion (not necessarily saying he does i'm just making an example) then every guy on that line will know that going into it and can adjust accordingly. So, lets hypothetically say that you base your scheme around Albert Haynesworth, (cuz a lot of people are bashing the coaching staff for not sticking with the 4 - 3 cuz it's a better fit for big al) and you train the other 10 starters... as well as the 24 other defensive back-ups... cuz you cant only have the 4-3 on when big al is in the game, but the 3-4 when second string guys come in.

So here's my point, Big Al creeps to the side when a player on offense goes in motion... well then you've got the guys to his right who understand that, and adjust their game accordingly, they take a little wide angle right... putting them properly into the gaps they are meant to be in. OK... so Big Al isnt in the game anymore... he's decided football is not his thing, he will now be going into competitive eating. Well the REDSKINS are still using 4-3 defensive scheme that the starters know... and now Kemo is playing DT. Player goes in motion... the guys on the right side of the creep right again... what happens... Kemo DOESNT. Result of the play.. Kemo gets pushed to his right... the other 2 linemen get shifted out of position and the full back leads the RB for a 20 yard gain. What does all this mean!?


1 PLAYER IS NOT MORE IMPORTANT THEN THE TEAM!!!!! If albert haynesworth wants to go all rogue on the squad and start deciding where HE apparently is goin on every play, then GOOD RIDDANCE! Is the defense the best in the league!? NO! Did this defense take a GIANT... and i'm talking about HUGE! step back... yes. BUT! In the same sentence, i now ask you

Did this defense produce more turnovers... YES
Did this defense also make crucial stops on multiple game saving drives... YES
Did this defense help their team win MORE GAMES THEN LAST YEAR?... YES
Did this defense also put Laron Landry, someone who a lot of people thought was too over the top and potentially cost us games last year, into a position to be considered a defensive MVP at the beginning of the season?... YES

OK , so what happens when the scheme you change to doesnt really fit ANY of your players better?

did this defence cost this team at least 3 wins? yes
did this defence not make crucial stops in several games? yes
did this defence win some games because people actually couldnt believe we were playing unsound? yes
have we allowed more blowout losses this year? yes
are we going to lose at least 2 probowl calibre players because of this? yes

using Landry as an example is a double edged sword, safety being your leading tackler shows that your defence is BAD. and lets be honest Landry should have been a SS no matter what scheme we used. he is fast but simply isnt a FS.

I have seen several arguments regarding our "improvement" in our record, but then tell us why a team like the Dolphins who werent as talented as us on paper went from 1 win to playoffs, while we have imporved our record by one win and regressed statistically?

Turnovers are a function of aggressiveness on defence, not specific alignments, and given that a lot of our picks came against the bears where we ran a lot of 4 man fronts, I wonder how good we would be.

Now you asked why you would base your defence around one player? Thats a good question!

You usually dont, however you do (if you are even a decent coach) base your defence around the talent you have and you adjust your defence around a guy if he is a superlative player who will make a difference. You also have to adjust your defence to hide weaknesses.

This defence has 3 players who I would term superlative and one who was very good when used properly.

AH- is a top DT when used as a disrupter/ attacking DT from the 3 tech.
Rak- could be a Jason Taylor type at 4-3 end.
Landry- if used at SS and aggressively he could excel in any system that doesnt have him playing deep center field.

Now we also have a guy who is not superlative but is one step down when used right, this guy is also probably the most professional redskin and has always been a classy guy but who when used improperly is not even a backup calibre guy in Carter. We had a developing young end that we gave up a third rounder for who now has no position here in jarmon as well.

we have two linebackers who in a 4-3 are just a step below pro bowl calibre but in a 3-4 just have inflated numbers because they have a pile of tackles after yards gained in Fletch and Rocky.

You asked a good question, now go read the 3-4 thread to see exactly why this switch was executed so poorly. Is the 3-4 itself a bad defence? No. is the 3-4 HERE a terrible defence? yes.

What you dont do, is change your defence because you like someone elses defence. You dont say " well I like the steelers defence because they are good so I will copy them". We dont have their personelle, and they have run the same system for decades, even when they changed head coaches they kept their defence the same by promoting assistants from their tree.

anyone looking at today's game and the clock mis-management by Shanahan before the half and at the end of the game should begin to get a good idea of where the blame lies for a number of the team issues including the choice of defensive system.

Today, Shanahan within 2 minutes held sole responsibility for calling timeouts (!).

He has a 12th year quarterback with 9 years of playoff experience and yet McNabb is not trusted to know when to call timeout in this critical juncture of the game.

I havent been screaming too much because I really was on the shanny bandwagon re the offence but man stuff like this is beginning to be difficult to ignore.

Bulldog's Twin said:

anyone looking at today's game and the clock mis-management by Shanahan before the half and at the end of the game should begin to get a good idea of where the blame lies for a number of the team issues including the choice of defensive system.

Today, Shanahan within 2 minutes held sole responsibility for calling timeouts (!).

He has a 12th year quarterback with 9 years of playoff experience and yet McNabb is not trusted to know when to call timeout in this critical juncture of the game.

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Let's not forget, though, that his quarterback tried to call a timeout off of the back of another timeout without a play in between... And we had no timeouts remaining. So maybe he shouldn't trust his QB.

The mismanagement is on Shanahan, though. For sure.

And for the record, I thought Haslett made some decent adjustments today. Tampa was a ttacking the bubble created with the 3-4 over the uncovered guard on the first drive, so Haslett pinched the ends in and removed the bubble and the D shored up a little bit.